January172015

Last year brought widespread acceptance of the “selfie stick” – a stick you clamp your smartphone into so you can take a narcissistic self-portrait at a slightly greater distance than your feeble human arms will allow. What’s odd about the selfie stick is that while it might faintly improve the photo you’ll post on Facebook, it definitely makes you seem like a shallow, awful clown to any bystanders in the humdrum physical space you’re posing in. And it’s unnecessary anyway, because if you’re the sort of person who takes so many self-portraits you’ll consider spending money on a selfie stick, it’s a cast-iron certainty that absolutely no one needs or wants to see another photograph of you ever again. Until the invention of the Selfpreciator, that is. The Selfpreciator is a quasi-sentient head-shaped device with one giant eye and a fixed grin, programmed to gaze approvingly at every self-portrait you upload while issuing appreciative murmurs and tweeting encouraging emojis your way. It’s even got its own selfie stick, so it can take photographs of itself admiring photographs of you, then email them to you, so you can ignore them while adjusting your selfie stick.

“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”